


Until You Need Me To Love You

by liviie



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Introspection, Love, M/M, Romance, Soft Neil Josten, Soft Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29565549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liviie/pseuds/liviie
Summary: Finding love seemed like a faraway nightmare, but as Neil falls deeper in it, he realizes maybe it isn't. Maybe, when he was looking at love like an enemy, he should've seen it as it was: the one thing worth fighting for.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	Until You Need Me To Love You

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I accidentally deleted this the first time I uploaded it. Sorry! This is the same story just with a different summary. :) Hope you like it still!

They say love has plenty of symptoms. Butterflies, sickness, flowers, heat, chills, pain, happiness, laughter, anger, jealousy. Trembles. Hormones. Weak knees. 

If not for Andrew, Neil wouldn't put himself near any context of love. Whether it be his undeniable love for Exy, running or his longtime roommate, Matthew Boyd: Neil would never describe himself as loving something. Anything. Instead, he’d say he needs these things. Hungers for the court or the running trail just by The Foxhole Court. But, despite all of this, Andrew continues to be real. He exists, consumes, and burns everything he touches even if the thing he touches is Neil. Especially if the thing Andrew touches is Neil. If Neil wasn’t so ungodly aware of this fact, maybe he could continue his life in the blissful normalcy he’s been containing for so long. Maybe if Andrew wasn't so empowering and unlawful, Neil could breathe without feeling an insatiable need to crawl into Andrew’s chest and finally feel free. 

The Foxes see the two interact and whisper between their gossip starved lips, “Maybe it is love?” Because Andrew sometimes stares at Neil during practice with such sincerity it seems he cannot suck in the air Neil isn't breathing as well. But, they know the boys all too well to believe in foolish ‘maybes’. They know that on some nights, the door The Monsters hide behind flings open to find a, very much breathing, Andrew Minyard with fists full of lava and pain. They can hear the holes in the drywall before they are even made. The gossip starved lips devour every fear fuelled breath that crawls out of Neil’s jaw. Every painful yelp when Neil scatters away from his and Andrew’s shared bed because for a minute he imagines lying in bed with a knife. They know love does not look like two armies ready for war. They hope, at least, that love does not look like a losing battle. A tragedy waiting to happen. The other Foxes look at Andrew and Neil and whisper their maybes fully aware that they are lies. The boys are sharp and angry, they look at each other with such a ferocity that if a match lay between their stare, the world would implode. They know this. They understand this. But also… maybe, just maybe. They do love each other. 

Maybe, when Neil is in the shower, terrified of the mirror waiting behind the curtain, Andrew waits on the other side of the door. Listening for the absence of breath or worse, the painful quickening of it. Maybe, just maybe, Andrew holds Neil close when the world begins to spin at velocity too high to comprehend. When Neil decides his legs can do all the thinking and the walking and the holding him together, maybe Andrew kisses the thoughts away. Maybe, Andrew holds Neil’s hands when it's cold outside or maybe, just maybe, when he wants to. 

Or, maybe, Neil kisses the insides of Andrew’s arms from wrist to elbow then back down. Maybe Neil smiles helplessly into his coffee when he thinks about sugar, rabbits, and that nervous breakdown on the roof… maybe not the nervous breakdown, but maybe when he told Andrew his dad killed his own mother when he was 17? No… not then either. Maybe, the roof does not know Neil Josten or Andrew Minyard, but rather the two boys that climbed it's arms just to fall right off together. To plummet, hands holding each other close in fear of the impact crushing the other. Each one silent as they know they are about to die. 

Neil knows about the maybes. He also knows about the “absolutely nots.” Neil’s aware that every hour, minute, second he spends with Andrew, his life is balancing between a story about romance and happy endings, and tragedy and murder. He feels his page turn everytime Andrew glares at him, everytime Neil weasels a chuckle from his tight, scowling lips. Neil knows and lives off the danger. When Andrew tells Neil he hates him, Neil believes him. He caresses the words in his mind with a sticky palm, clammy with fear. Neil hears the words and smiles into the kiss Andrew disassembles them with. 

“I hate you,” Andrew whispers into the sky. 

“I hate you too,” Neil answers. 

And it isn’t because “I hate you” secretly means “I love you.” It isn’t even because at least Neil can keep his normalcy if he convinces himself he hates Andrew. Neil says those words because he fully, truly hates Andrew Minyard. Just like Andrew fully, truly hates Neil Josten. 

“You scowl at me and crease your forehead when I don't say it back, but Andrew I hate you to your lying bones.” Neil admits, ignoring the blond’s endearing sigh. 

Neil hates Andrew because one day, Andrew asked him to stay and never had to again. Because somehow, Neil’s mask manages to disappear when faced with him. Neil wants to be real with Andrew and for some reason, Andrew allows him to be. But most of all, Neil hates Andrew because Andrew needs him to. Just like Neil needs the court or Matthew Boyd. 

One night, Andrew whispered to Neil, “Cass loved me too.” And that was all they needed. It didn't mean the two didn't know what they felt for each other wasn’t labelled hate. It didn’t mean Neil stopped smiling into his coffee or Andrew stopped holding Neil’s hands just because he wanted to. It just meant sometimes, Andrew swung open his dorm room so he could breathe a little more or that sometimes Neil had to scramble from his bed and run for hours on end. It meant sometimes they couldn't trust anyone but themselves to hold themselves together. 

Neil is aware and happy. He’s looked at his relationship and known that it could only work if he tried. If they both tried. And if for now, trying looked like hating and smiling into coffee cups and long drives that end in soft kisses, he’s fine with trying. Afterall, what’s a runner with weak knees?


End file.
